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Friday, June 3, 2016

Paid Sick Leave Arrives in the Mill City

After
ongoing discussions for more than a year, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously
on Friday May 27, 2016, to become the first city in the Midwest and the 23rd
city nationally to mandate paid sick
leave for employees.
Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges first called on the Minneapolis City Council to
pass a local sick leave ordinance in her April 2015 State of the
City
address. Since that time, numerous businesses, community members, and a
fifteen-member task force named the Workplace Partnership Group have been
studying and weighing in on the passage of a sick leave ordinance.

Here
are some key details of the Minneapolis sick leave ordinance that passed last
Friday:

The
ordinance will become effective July 1,
2017, although some newly formed businesses will have a one-year grace period to provide paid sick leave.

The
ordinance requires

- Employers
with 6 or more employees to provide paid sick leave to

employees who work
at least 80 hours per year in
Minneapolis.

- Employers
with less than 6 employees to
provide unpaid sick leave

to employees who work at least 80 hours per
year in Minneapolis.

Covered
employees (both part-time and full-time) will accrue 1 hour of sick time for every
30 hours worked, up to a maximum of
48 hours per year.

Employees
may rollover unused time from year
to year up to a total cap of 80 hours of
sick time.

Employees
may start using sick time after their first
90 days of employment.

Retaliation
for using sick time is prohibited, and non-compliance with the ordinance is
punishable by:

- The
cost of the sick leave entitlement; - Monetary fines; - Attorneys’ fees and costs; and - Loss of City business license.

The
ordinance permits employees to use accrued sick time for a wide variety of
reasons, including their own medical appointments or sickness, sick family
members, absences due to domestic violence, sexual abuse or sexual assault, and
unexpected childcare needs.

Additionally,
because of the broad phrasing of the ordinance, employers based outside of
Minneapolis will need to provide sick leave to their employees who work at
least 80 hours per year in Minneapolis.

The
Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights is charged with the enforcement of the
ordinance, and in the coming months the City will be preparing a poster for
covered employers to display. Covered employers are also required to update
their handbooks to include the notice of the sick leave ordinance rights and
remedies.

Covered
employers should begin preparing for the July 2017 effective date well in
advance, since the new sick leave ordinance requires careful updating of
handbooks, policies, and procedures.

Please
review our client alert for a more
in-depth analysis of the Minneapolis sick leave ordinance and what it means for
local employers.

Thanks for your question. The ordinance permits the sick leave obligations to be satisfied through a PTO policy. That being said, the ordinance will, as of 7/1/17, require that every employee working at least 80 hours a year within Minneapolis, accrue 1 hour of sick time (paid or unpaid depending on the employer’s size) up to an annual cap of 48 hours per year. The ordinance, therefore, requires employers to have protected sick time for covered part-time employees, not just full-time employees.

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